New York cotton finishes firm

Cotton futures vaulted to a strong finish Monday on speculative fund buying and news that weather in the key growing state of Texas will be hot and dry over the next few days, analysts said. The New York Board of Trade's July contract went up 0.78 cent to settle at 48.16 cents a lb, moving from 47.50 to 48.55 cents.
New-crop December surged 1.15 cents to 52.49 cents, dealing from 51.75 to 52.95 cents. The rest went up 0.50 cent to 1.20 cents.Keith Brown, president of commodity trading firm Keith Brown and Co in Moultrie, Georgia, said cotton was "due a bounce" because it has been oversold.
"I think we'll try to get up a little bit toward 55 cents," he said, referring to the December contract, adding the hot weather in Texas was supportive for futures.
Forecaster Meteorlogix predicted Texas will be mostly dry and that temperatures will range from 65 to 105 degrees Fahrenheit (18-41 Celsius).
Brown said the market some automatic buy orders kick in when December raced past 52 cents before trade sales beat it back a bit.
The market also saw a bit of switch trade as players transferred their long positions out of July and into the back months ahead of the start of the delivery period in the July contract at the close of trade on Friday.
Open interest in July dropped 4,234 lots to 16,461 contracts as of June 17 while interest in the December contract went up 1,931 to 63,230 lots.
Traders said the open interest in the July contract would need to fall to around 4,000 to 5,000 lots on Friday so an orderly delivery period can get under way.
After that, the market can turn its attention to market fundamentals such as the progress of the US cotton crop, weather conditions, and the kind of crop from countries like China, the world's top consumer of cotton.
Brokers Flanagan Trading Corp sees support in the now active December cotton contract at 51.85 and 51.05 cents, with resistance at 52.75 and 53.10 cents.
Floor dealers said estimated final trading volume at 21,000 lots, up from Friday's tally of 13,569 lots. Open interest sank 2,180 lots to 92,530 lots as of June 17.